Re: [Gnu-arch-users] Re: Re: community spirit

[Andrew Suffield]

On Tue, Nov 02, 2004 at 11:47:22AM +0100, Jacob Gorm Hansen wrote:
> I agree that Windows systems often need format c: (and I don't
> particularly like using Windows, even though these days it is a far more
> pleasant experience than it was a couple of years ago), but the problem
> with tools like rpm and apt is that developers become lazy; on my debian
> box:
> 
> # apt-get install evolution
> Reading Package Lists... Done
> Building Dependency Tree... Done
> The following extra packages will be installed:
>   epiphany-browser evolution-data-server gtkhtml3.2 libasn1-6-heimdal
> libcompfaceg1 libebook8 libecal6 libedata-book1 libedata-cal5
> libedataserver3 libegroupwise6 libgail-common libgail17 libgal2.2-1
>   libgal2.2-common libglib2.0-0 libgssapi1-heimdal libgtkhtml3.2-11
> libkrb5-17-heimdal libnspr4 libnss3 libsoup2.2-7 mozilla-browser mozilla-psm
> Suggested packages:
>   gnome-spell
> Recommended packages:
>   gnome-pilot-conduits spamassassin libglib2.0-data myspell-en-us
> myspell-dictionary
> 
> In this case I have to install two or three web browsers (that I am
> never going to use), kerberos support, GroupWise support, and various
> other stuff, just to get a (very fancy) email client. Glad I'm on a fat
> pipe, but people in my family (who I'd like to run Linux) are still on
> modems.

I cannot see why epiphany and mozilla are in that list. They aren't
here. What strange package of evolution is this? Of the rest of that
stuff, about two thirds of it is merely components of gtk or evolution
itself; you have no cause for complaint there. Aside from that, there
are three independent components here:

SSL support
Kerberos support
X-Face support

I don't think you can realistically claim that it would be better off
without any one of those, especially since they're all fairly small,
and doubly so since you're installing evolution. None of those extra
features makes a significant load compared to evolution itself.

> It seems to me that at least a handfull of these deps could have been
> avoided, by proper engineering.

Only by eliminating features that are widely desired. Where would be
the point in that? It's not like they're large dependencies.

> But back to the problem with scripting languages in the base system, see
> http://perlmonks.thepen.com/165833.html , about an effort to remove Perl
> from FreeBSD, in order to save 20MB on the base install.

Stupid. The base install of Perl in Debian is 750k. All the rest is
optional. Just because they don't know what they're doing doesn't mean
it was a good solution.

-- 
  .''`.  ** Debian GNU/Linux ** | Andrew Suffield
 : :' :  http://www.debian.org/ |
 `. `'                          |
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